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Detailed information of ArtWork

Artist: Islamic

Title: Bowl lamp with a high foot

Year: 13th century A.D., 14th century A.D.

Technique: Terracotta

Dimension: H: 8.9 cm

NotesTurned lamp in the shape of a bowl with a pinched nozzle, provided with a tiny round central dish for the lower wick and with a ribbon handle connecting the back of the shoulder to the rim of the central dish. High conical foot on a flat round base delineated by a ring in relief. The lamp is carefully decorated with three colors of glaze: turquoise blue for the outer periphery of the central dish and to put in relief the ring separating the foot from the bowl; emerald green for the entire bowl; shiny black to highlight the upper surface of the nozzle and to draw simple motifs representing arcs inside the bowl, ridges on the handle and dots on the outer shoulder.
Our example belongs to a well documented type, originally characterized by a conical tank applied to the middle of the bowl lamp and provided with a handle between the back of the shoulder and the top of the tank. This type of lamp, first produced in Syria (Waagé 1941, type 58b), in Palestine and in Egypt from the 9th century A.D. onward, was extremely popular, since it can be found throughout the southern Mediterranean basin as far as Morocco (Robert-Chaleix 1983, p. 65). It was also exported and then produced locally in sometimes very closely derived versions in Corinth (Broneer 1930, p. 124) and even in northern Greece (Motisanos 2005).
Within this large group, our lamp is a simplified later variant differing from the canonical type by a tank turning into a tiny central dish, like here, and by an increasingly pronounced nozzle. Produced as of the 12th century A.D. in Antioch and from the 13th to the 15th century A.D. in Egypt (Kubiak 1970, type J, p. 15), such lamps are usually decorated with a lead or a green glaze and are sometimes adorned with geometrical patterns on the bowl (Hadad 2002, type 47, p. 115).
Our lamp is probably a Near Eastern production dated between the 13th and the 14th century A.D.
Complete and in good condition, but glaze slightly faded and very cracked (especially inside the vessel); chips.